As this crazy Davis Cup tournament splutters towards its weekend climax, Great Britain will return to the semi-finals for the third time in five years on Saturday hoping Andy Murray has recovered from the thigh strain that kept him out of Friday’s quarter-final win over Germany.
The team captain, Leon Smith – not to mention fans hoping to get away from Caja Mágica on the outskirts of Madrid before midnight – had much to thank Kyle Edmund and Dan Evans for as their illustrious teammate watched from the bench, nursing a thigh strain. Edmund beat Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-3, 7-5 in the first quarter-final and Evans, who lost both his group-stage matches from winning positions, rendered a penalty shootout (otherwise known as the closing doubles) redundant with a bruising 7-6 (6), 3-6, 7-6 (2) win over Jan-Lennard Struff.
Murray, who expended a lot of energy winning on Wednesday and told Smith on Thursday night he needed more time to recover, will surely play on Saturday.In front of maybe a thousand fans, the atmosphere on Court Two did not support the World Cup of Tennis of marketing imagination. However, while it was not exactly time-travelling back to Wembley Stadium in 1966, there was throaty support for both teams from those who had lasted the week of the new format, mostly British, many of them Scots, none of them in danger of causing crowd trouble.
Trusting his strong right arm, Edmund broke for 4-2 and served out the first set in a little over half an hour, as Kohlschreiber wilted under a barrage of booming forehands. Kohlschreiber’s clean hitting kept him in it for a while, and, taking Edmund’s second serve on the rise, he broke for 3-1 in the second – but he handed it straight back, as his opponent again hit a daunting rhythm. Disheartened, the German dropped serve in the 11th game and Edmund served it out after an hour and 22 minutes.
Edmund, who hit 12 aces and was strong on both wings, said courtside: “My level today was good. Yesterday [when he substituted for the resting Murray and beat Mikhail Kukushkin] was good as well. Sometimes when you play first match, you are running on adrenaline, pumped to get there. As days go by, the challenge is to keep that consistent. Today I really did that. I knew if I kept my energy high, my intensity, my game is in a good place.”
In the second match, the free-hitting Struff had to save three break points to counter the aggressive Evans in the third game and three more to stop him taking the set in the 34th minute. Twenty minutes later, Evans served for the set again and this time won a heart-stopping tie-break.
The second set was just as tight. Struff broke for 4-3 and again to level at a set apiece, as Evans’s level dipped. In the third set, he was under pressure all the way to the tie-break, where he went 3-0 up, led 4-2 on the changeover, held for 5-2, got the mini-break for four match points. Struff, who had played bravely, hit long and the job was done.
Britain will play the winner of Argentina v Spain in the semi-finals.
